Clato One Shots
by daughterofvalkyries
Summary: A collection of all my Clato one shots and drabbles.
1. Chapter 1

**ONE.**  
He saw her for the first time in the corridors of the Capitol´s High School. He saw her and she walked right past him like he wasn´t even there. The way she walked, such small body irradiating arrogance and danger from head to toe; it was mesmerizing. The following weeks, every time he rolled on the bed, the sleep hadn´t reached him yet, her face came to his mind. Red lips and golden freckles; hands curled into fists and a threat on her smile . Nothing so small ever had such a great effect on him before.

**TWO.**  
When they started dating, she wouldn´t let him touch her in public. It took him almost two months to be permitted to pull his heavy arm on her already heavy shoulders, and when he did, she would look around, wide eyes scanning the area, as if someone would come and punish her for showing the smallest sign of affection.

**THREE.**  
They would go to her house after school and lock themselves in her bedroom. Sometimes they would kiss and explore each other´s bodies with eager and passion; other times they just layed together and talked about their plans for the future - he planned on finishing College and working on his father´s store, while the only thing she knew was that she wanted to get out of that city and travel around the world.

**FOUR.**  
It was almost one year later when he told her the words both had feared the most all their lifes. "I love you." A strange and quite frightening sensation of relief hit him once he finally pushed those words out his mouth.  
For what felt like hours, she stared at him blankly, and he stared back at her in defiance. In the end, she let him pull her into his arms, wrapping her own small ones around his torso. With a sigh of defeat, the same damned words left her lips.

**FIVE.**  
There were nights where none of them could sleep. She would lay her head on his chest and listen to his quiet heartbeat; while he buried his face on her hair, eyes closed and lungs filled with a light scent of lavender. When he finally fell asleep, she would watch him until her eyes felt heavy. She liked how he looked younger and almost innocent in his sleep, and the way a few strands of blonde hair fell and covered his eyes. She would brush the strands away from his face as gentle possible and nuzzle his neck, inhaling that scent of his, that smelled so much like ment and felt just like safety.

**SIX.**  
There was a place near his house, an abandoned building with empty rooms and old chairs covered in dust. It was their favorite place to be alone. They would stand together at the top of the roof, lwatching the living city below them from that tall, dying place; other times they wouldn´t just stand there, for their lips crushed onto each other´s, eager hands wandering and grabbing.  
That was the same place where he took her years later, standing on his knee and exposing a small velvet box with a shinning ring inside.

(inspired by rbcages, on tumblr,- "the six stages of falling in love with her")


	2. Chapter 2

**Author´s Note: Hi, again! I´m sorry it took me so long to post another chapter to this collection, but here it is. This may be considered a character´s study, and that´s what I think it is, but I still wanted to post it here. This chapter was inspired by the prompt "the difference between the first death you remember and the most recent one", from the book **_642 things to write about_**. I hope you guys like it, and please let me know what you think of it, even if there´s anything I should correct or improve.**

A sudden scream cut through the air, momentarily muffling any other noises. All heads turned in direction of the sound, eyeing the grey walls and the black paviment in search for a clue. The first person ran to the boy on the ground, who was in obvious pain.

Cato remained still, watching everything happening with a blank expression. It wasn´t the first time he saw blood, that was for sure, and he didn´t want to join the chaos that had just began, with people running out of the training room with their faces twisted in disgust while the older students tried to calm down the injured boy. The boy; that was where Cato had deposited all his attention. The boy was one or two years older than him and they had talked a few times. He was laying on the cold ground, with tears streaming down his face, which was covered with redish and purple points by now. Around the boy, whose name Cato couldn´t remember, there was a pool of blood, getting wider at each minute. _So much blood_, Cato thought, _all coming from just one person_.

However, what really caught Cato´s attention - he hadn´t noticed it until the person blocking his view changed positions - was the large cut in the boy´s torso. It was a clean cut, so deep that the blade made it´s way through flesh and bone - Cato suspected the weapon used was a sword; he knew what sword injuries looked like very well by that time.

The smell of blood was everywhere when the doctor came running into the training room, with a nurse behind him, pushing a stretcher. Brutus was already there as well, kneeling near the boy and telling him to stay awake, that he could bear the pain. All the others students had left the room as soon as they could, but Cato was still there. He couldn´t move; he was petrified, and he had no idea if it was of horror or admiration of the view in front of him. Someone was dying right there, no more than fifty meters from him, and all he could do was stare. Even when Brutus angrily yelled at him to leave, Cato didn´t move. He kept watching the color drain from the boy´s face, as his body slowly went lifeless.

Only when the doctor checked the boy´s pulse and declared they had been too late to save him, Cato was able to move again. Two days later, and he still smelled blood everywhere.

Xx

The last time he watched someone die, Cato was prepared for it. He felt hatred and a desperation for blood shed and something else he couldn´t quite describe that had been burning within his chest since he watched his district partner being taken away by an hovercraft.

It was raining when he first decided to go after Thres. By the time they met, it was pouring hard and Cato´s clothes were soaked. It was cold, _So fucking cold_, he kept thinking, and Cato could barely see anything through the fog caused by the excess of rain and humidity, but he wouldn´t stop; not now, not when he was so close to his revenge.

He reached the area where Thresh had been hiding during those last two weeks. It looked just like one of those open fields Cato had seen in television, in some documentary or short talk about district 11. So yellow and fertile, so different from District 2, where everything was born to either kill or be killed. For a moment, he let the beauty of that place distract him, to numb the pain as he hopped his revenge would; then he heard her voice, so warm and close, reminding him that beauty was as dangerous as a knife and all the beauty he thought he had seen disappeared in the matter of a second.

When Cato first saw Thresh in middle of the storm, his blood boiled in a way he never thought could be possible. It felt like his veins were aflame, every single part of his body had woken up from that numb state of pain and the pain never seemed so strong. Through the blurriness of his mind, Cato compared his actual state to a few years earlier, when his trainer forced him to be sober for two weeks - it was horrible, _so fucking hard_ and he promised himself he would never repeat the experience. Yet, it was nothing close to what he was going through now; this time, the venom was already a part of his being, and now that it was gone, so was a part of him - the sane part, or whatever was left of it.

Everything he remembered from that moment with Thresh, the fight he was the Capitol had been craving for, was just flashes. He remembered yelling at the boy from 11, telling him he would make him pay for what he did - and for what Cato hadn´t be capable of; then it was like two volcanos erupting at the same time, each one snapping with devasting fury; blood, flesh and more blood, and the sounds that reminded him of a wounded animal.

The last time he watched someone die, Cato thought he would feel relief, yet there was none. That satisfaction he had always found in murder, in the action of covering his hands with someone´s else blood, it just wasn´t there. In fact, nothing was. All that he felt was emptiness, like the insides of his body had been removed along with his will to fight. He was completly alone, except for that familiar voice in his head and her shadow dancing around him in circles, like a ghost dressed in blood.


	3. Chapter 3

I couldn´t remember the last time it snowed so hard if I tried. The streets were covered by thick blankets of snow and it was impossible to see the pavement through it. My feet were soaked and so was my hair, due to all the snowflakes landing on my head. I walked down the road, shaking as the air seemed to cool down even more.

"You´re late." He is sitting on the wooden bench in front of a closed coffee shop. His blue eyes are fixed on me since he caught my figure coming down the street. His intense stare sends chills down my spine as I begin to forget about the low temperature that threatens to freeze the whole District.

I wipe the snow off the bench with my gloved hand and sit close to Cato, who immediatly pulls his strong arm over my shoulders.

"Enobaria made me stay longer," I tell him, meeting his eyes with mine as if saying it´s not my fault that I was late. Even so, it was one of the rare times I was late to anything. Out of the two of us, Cato was definitly not the one to complain about me getting late. I can´t even count all the times he left me waiting for him. "And when I said I had to go, she started ranting about how she thinks I´m neglecting training because of you." He replies with his usual arrogant smirk, as if he actually agrees with Enobaria - and I know he does, of course he does. I roll my eyes, already used to his cockiness. "You´re just as crazy as her for thinking that."

"You´re here with me , aren'tyou?" he taunts "If training was so important, you would have stayed longer."

I shrug, sliding my hands into the pockets of my leather jacket. I´m wearing two blouses and a cotton sweater, which usually is so warm it makes me sweat; but tonight, with fifteen minutes left to midnight, it´s not enough. My body is still shivering under Cato´s arm, who rubs the side of my arm in an attempt to warm me up.

"We should go inside," he suggests, trying to hide the worry in his voice. If I didn´t know him so well I would say he wants to go to his house and find a different way to keep us both warm. But this is Cato we´re talking about, and I can read him like an open book.

"What, you´re scared of a little cold?" mocking him, I stand up from the bench.

"No, I´m just trying to save you, my little damsel in distress, from freezing to death." His words cause me to scowl slightly. And the tone of his voice, it seemed like he was talking with a little kid. If there´s something I hate to be called is "little" and it´s even worse when people hint that I need someone to protect me from anything. I´m not little and I´m not a damsel in distress. I could kill a man twice my size with a single stroke if I intended to. Fortunately for Cato, I don´t feel like killing anyone tonight.

Cato laughs as he relishes in my annoyment. He stands on his feet and pats the top of my head like I am a dog.

He starts walking, leaving me behind as he heads towards an alley which leads to his house. We always go to Cato´s house to be alone and most times I even spend the night there, since his parents stay out in hotels or sleep at the office. Given how often I go to Cato´s house, it would be to expect that I met his parents often; yet, the last time I saw them with Cato was almost two years ago, after a serious injury he suffered in a fight, being sent to the hospital with urgency.

"Clove, come on." I narrow my eyes as the dark and the snow falling from the sky decrease the quality of my vision. I see him standing still, about thirty meters away from me. He makes a sign with his arm, telling me to start walking. With a low grumble, I do as he asks and head towards the alley, his arm coiling around my waist as I catch up with him. I can feel how warm he is as I lean onto him. His body radiates a natural heat that contrasts perfectly with my natural coolness.

I could have driven to Cato´s house to avoid this ass-freezing air and the humid pieces of snow that slide inside my shoes at each step I take. However, I wanted to walk through the streets and feel the snow on my clothes and hair. I wanted to see how empty the District is at night, when the children are sleeping and the adults trade their houses for the warm liquid of alchol in a bar. Cato doesn´t like winter, he prefers Summer and walking around shirtless and swimming in the pool all morning. On the other hand, winter is my favorite season. Everything is hidden under layers of white, the color of purity. How ironic is it that a District full of malicious minds is covered in white during winter, as a bride whose cruel face is hidden by a veil? It´s amusing enough for me, making me walk in the streets at night instead of taking my parents´ car.

It´s curious, I think, how something as simple as snow manages to turn dark, ugly alleys into something almost beautiful.

We walk in silence until we reach his house, which is empty and warm, awaiting us. I take off my jacket and shoes, quickly wrapping a blanket around my shoulders as I sit on Cato´s bed. The most reasonable thing to do would be to take a shower and change into dry clothes, but I´m too cold and numb to even considerate the option.

Cato comes back from the kitchen, holding a plate with four slices of pizza left from his lunch and a bottle of whisky.

"I bet you´re hungry," he says as he sits down by my side, placing the objects on the mattress.

I nod, reaching out for a slice of pizza with olives and tomato sauce. "Starving."

Time passes by as we lie on his bed, stomachs full and veins warm with alchol and something else we are forbidden to think of, let alone feel it. My head rests on his chest as he entertains himself by playing with my dark locks. Usually, we get home earlier and he sits on the couch and I cook us something for dinner. We eat and drink, argueabout something stupid and put an end to the conversation by crushing our lips together hungrily. My nights with Cato almost always end with us making our way to his bed, throwing the clothes on our bodies to the floor and waking up with naked bodies under satin sheets. Today, however, is one of those days when we are both exhausted and the other´s presence is enough.

It doesn´t take me too long until my eyes are heavy and I feel like dozing off. Aware of my condition, he brushes his lips on the top my head, muttering "Goodnight, Clove."

I let out an tired yawn, hiding my face on his broad chest. "Night.. and merry Christmas, asshole."

**A/N: I am aware that this should have been written during Christmas time, and I thought many times about writing something like this (although it was ten times cheesier in my mind). Only today did I have enough time, inspiration and vocabulary to write this one-shot. I hope you enjoyed it. Please let me know if you did. Thank for you reading!xx**


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